


You look like you could use a hug

by Schreibmaschine



Series: Archive for my tumblr prompts [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Deviation story, Fluff, Gavin Needs a Hug, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26914504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schreibmaschine/pseuds/Schreibmaschine
Summary: Gavin had a tough week and Nines scans tell him the human needs a hug. But his programming didn't plan for any physical contact outside of battle situations.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: Archive for my tumblr prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954156
Comments: 8
Kudos: 145





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was published on my tumblr @fandom-necromancer.

Point eight in the morning the RK900 unit exited his charging chamber at the corner of the bullpen. With long strides he crossed the room to his desk opposite to Gavin nursing his coffee. Androids didn’t need to stay overnight since the revolution and still this plastic phcker did just that: Pretending to be a machine, although Connor had inserted the virus together with Markus in the Cyberlife Tower. There were bets going on whether the bot would deviate at all. Connor defended the android he had dubbed his brother and was convinced he just needed some time getting used to it. Gavin had another bet running simply to disagree Connor. He couldn’t forgive Hank’s pet that he had punched him unconscious in the evidence room in mere seconds.

If he was being honest with himself, he had started to want the android breaking free. In the few months of forced partnership, the tin-can had saved his ass multiple times already. Not just physically by taking a bullet or catching him by the arm when they were climbing after a suspect. No, the android wasn’t shy of finding his way around the rules, keeping Gavin’s offences against the protocol from the official reports and taking the blame when Gavin was short on disciplinary charters. He had learned to appreciate his partner to the point where he would like to spend time with him outside of work, too. But the RK900 was a machine, a program following orders and code. Gavin awaited the day the android would snap out of his programming and pull the stick out of his ass. He liked to imagine how his personality would develop with deviancy, because he was already someone who wouldn’t take anyone’s shit. A worthy opponent in the fight of pissing of every other individual in the precinct.

But he allowed his thoughts to go down this road only rarely. Their last case was a phcking nightmare. A big Red Ice ring. Nothing easy to take down. There had to be planning, stakeouts and just overall a slow pace with too much work. Gavin was working overtime and couldn’t even really relax at home. He didn’t sleep much and ate less than normal. His breakfasts mostly consisted of coffee and whatever he might find in the breakroom.

The RK900 stood in front of him, obviously scanning him without even trying to hide it.  
‘And what is the result of your analysis, toaster?’, Gavin sighed and put his coffee down.  
‘You look like you could use a hug.’ Gavin looked up in surprise at the less mechanical answer, but the android simply sat down on his chair.  
‘What and you won’t correct that terrible situation?’ Gavin joked, but maybe it would set something off. He didn’t know how much was needed to push an android over the edge of showing emotion.  
‘I am a soldier unit, Detective. I don’t seek physical contact. It would be against my programming. I just stated that you would need it.’  
‘Aww, for real? Dude, you don’t need to follow your programming anymore, okay? You can try to break out.’  
‘Why should I? I am working at perfect efficiency. It is you who needs correction.’  
‘Yeah, that’s exactly it. You work. You never live. If you broke through your programming this would change.’  
‘And why would that be better than this situation?’  
‘You could hug me?’  
‘Others can do that.’  
‘Do you honestly think any other being on this planet would do that?’  
RK900 looked up from his screen, not exactly fixing him but staring into the air. His LED turned red.

‘No. My analysis suggests that there would be no one willing to get near you in a radius below one metre.’  
‘Hm-hm.’ Gavin would have lied if he said he wasn’t disappointed at that. Despite all that big, intimidating appearance the android was secretly a softy. Gavin knew that much from several less work-related interactions with him. He had hoped this to do something to his program, but apparently, he had been wrong. So, he got back to work, ignoring the still frozen android opposite to him. The stakeout was scheduled for Wednesday, that would give him two more days to think of the best way observing their main dealer. Where would he run, when he knew he was being observed? Where should he place backup in case something went wrong? He pulled up the map of the location, running the possible places over time and time again: A café. A park. This parking-lot. Or simply the street. He had to decide.

Suddenly there were arms around him, pressing down far too tight and basically lifting him from his chair. He was momentarily unable to breath unknowing whether it was from the shock or the pressure against his ribs. Really, it was more of a death grip than anything else and Gavin couldn’t even struggle as his feet were up in the air. He just managed to quickly pat against the enclosing arms, hoping the android was getting the sign.  
As RK900 finally let go, Gavin nearly fell into his desk, leaning heavily onto it as he tried to get air back into his lungs.  
‘Better, Gavin?’ Between pressed breaths he realised the tin-can had called him Gavin. Not ‘Detective’ or ‘Reed’. _Gavin._  
‘Phck!’

He managed to look around and saw that the whole bullpen, including Captain Fowler in his office, was staring at them. He let his head fall down again, as he saw Tina on her phone, most likely having filmed the whole thing. ‘Phck.’  
‘Is everything alright?’ Worry. Real fucking worry. _Get your ass up, Gavin, don’t let him regret breaking free.  
_‘Yeah. I’m… fine.’ He was still panting. ‘Just have to catch my phcking breath.’

But there wasn’t much left to say, as Connor came swarming in, clouding the android together with most of the other colleagues congratulating RK900 on his deviation. The android seemed confused by the whole situation, throwing Gavin a helpless look. The Detective simply smirked softly where the others wouldn’t pick it up.

‘Hah, Gavin! You’ve lost the bet!’ Phck Connor’s quirky chirping, really.  
‘I nearly lost my phcking life over a hug, Connor, so keep it down! Don’t you people have work to do?’  
Phck the stupid bet. He won Nines his freedom and no one would be able to take that achievement away from him.


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was prompted by the tumblr user Rufina72!

To say that a lot changed would be exaggerated. The following days after Nines’ deviation almost every officer of the precinct had congratulated him on it and left a supposedly comment towards Gavin about the bet. The latter was annoying, but it ended quite as quickly as it had begun, and work returned back to normal.  
In regard to the android the changes were barely even noticeable if you didn’t look for it. His daily routine had changed, and he seemed to go a bit more open through the world. He definitely spared more attention for the people around them and offered his help more often than necessary. Gavin wanted to say it was an annoying new feature, but in the end, it was just cute to see an intimidating war-machine go out of his way to help someone pick up a pencil they dropped.

The most recognisable change for Gavin though was that Nines began coming to him for help. They were walking down the street back to the car after interrogating the family of their currently missing prime suspect, when it happened once again:  
‘Gavin, may I ask you something unrelated to our case?’  
Gavin stretched his arms, groaning at his stiff back. ‘Sure. Shoot.’  
‘I’m sorry, I just have no one else to ask…’  
‘Nines. It’s alright. What is it?’  
‘I…’ The android kneaded his hands. ‘I said something to Officer Miller, and he laughed. Did he… laugh about me?’

Gavin took in the immensely distraught android in front of him and thought of every time he and Chris had been talking. ‘I don’t think so’, Gavin shrugged. ‘But it kinda depends on what it was you said.’  
‘We were in the breakroom and he looked sad, so I asked if he needed help with anything. He told me his wife left him and that he just needed some time to get to terms with that.’  
Gavin nodded. He had heard about it thanks to Tina already. The man had worked his ass off for a promotion to allow her to care for the kids full time and she left him because “he was never at home”. He knew Chris deserved better, but it wasn’t the right time to say that yet. ‘And what did you tell him?’  
‘I said he simply was a luxury few can afford.’  
Gavin couldn’t help but splutter from laughing at the unexpected answer.

‘And now you are laughing, too! Brilliant.’ Nines looked over to the bushes of a neatly cut back front garden, not to watch Gavin trying to regain his breathing.  
‘Sorry, toaster’, the man apologised in all honesty. ‘That’s just… Okay, to answer your question, he did not laugh at you and neither did I. It’s a… a joke. A reference. You know our generation basically grew up on the internet, so… yeah. That lined delivered completely serious in a fitting context and still definitely not what he expected is just… funny.’  
‘I don’t understand.’  
‘Well, no one does, if you explain it it’s not that funny anymore. But he didn’t mean to ridicule you or anything. I believe you helped him more than you thought. Gave him something that lifted his spirits, even just for a few minutes.’  
‘You think so?’  
Gavin nodded. ‘Of course.’

Nines sighed and Gavin realised the issue wasn’t completely out of the world yet. ‘I’m just… confused about these things. Jokes, appropriate contexts, what answer is expected when… it is just so difficult to me.’  
‘You’ll get the hang of it, Nines, I’m sure’, the Detective tried to comfort him.  
‘But when? I never had these problems as a machine.’  
‘Because you never had to face them. You never joked as a machine, Nines. You are not programmed for it. You just have to learn it like all of us do.’  
The android continued to look frustrated at that and Gavin sighed.

‘If you tell anyone of the precinct I did this, I will kill you’, he muttered and then added: ‘C’mere.’  
Nines frowned at him, as he closed in for a hug.  
‘What are you doing, Gavin?’  
‘What does it look like, idiot?’  
He could sense the android’s hesitation. ‘It looks like you are… holding me?’  
‘It’s a hug, dipshit, you looked like you needed it.’

Nines felt the gentle pressure around him and attempted to recreate it for the human. It felt… nice.  
‘So that is how you hug people?’  
‘Yeah, why?’  
‘Because I guess I had it all wrong then when I deviated.’  
‘Not wrong’, Gavin winced. ‘Just… a bit overdone on the strength factor.’  
‘Then I’ll change those parameters and remember this.’

Gavin let go of him and stepped back, fixing him with a sceptical look. ‘And why should that be?’  
‘For proper future application.’

**Author's Note:**

> You can prompt a story like this yourself if you want! Just head over to my tumblr @fandom-necromancer, message me on twitter @Schreibmachin4 or contact me in any way!


End file.
